Thinking, about cycling. "Anybody whose mind is proud enough not to breed true secretly carries a bomb at the back of his brain; and so I suggest, just for the fun of the thing, taking that private bomb and carefully dropping it upon the model city of commonsense." (This blog began as an archive of DYNAMITE!, the newsletter of London Dynamo cycling club, which you can still access via "DYNAMITE! filed" in the list below on the left.)

Downloading: the new ‘talking about stuff’.

February 24, 2012

Did you see Sebastian Coe’s brief trackside interview on Sunday afternoon after the BBC screened Laura Trott’s thrilling victory in the omnium elimination race? Or did you experience Lord Coe downloading his thoughts into your brainpiece, via your twin audio receptors (ears)? Because, apparently, it’s now perfectly acceptable to use the word in that sort of context.

Speaking about the weekend’s racing at the Pringle-roofed velodrome, TV’s Mr Olympics said the spectators would “download their experiences” of the London Track World Cup. I think he meant they’ll talk about what they liked and didn’t like about the weekend, which will presumably give his team the information they need to “upload” any tweaks that need to be made to the venue for this summer’s Games.

Watching it on telly, me and Littlejen thought the Track World Cup sounded like a right old noisy racket (and, incidentally, well done Britain for trying to rattle the cage of Germany’s Robert Forstermann by playing Queen’s us-lot-don’t-want-you-to-win anthem We Will Rock You prior to one of his duels with Chris Hoy). But there was no klaxon, ebullient roar or even a quick dong of the lap bell to signal the arrival of Lord Coe’s innovative new term for the simple act of expressing thoughts. So, like Robert Robinson introducing a new word, I hope this humble post serves as a gentle tinkle.